Ted Butler: Life under manipulation

Silver market analyst Ted Butler today marvels again at the huge position in Comex silver futures and the concentration of the short position.

Butler writes: "Total open interest data indicates that there is a 1-billion-ounce open commitment in Comex silver short and long positions, more than annual world production or consumption. No other commodity has a larger real-world equivalent total open interest this high.

"The long and short position in Comex silver is so much larger than that of any other futures-traded commodity that it necessarily exerts a force on price more profound than in any other commodity. Because the positioning in Comex silver futures is larger than what's going on in the real world, the paper market dictates price to the world of silver production and consumption. ...

"The entire Comex net short silver position (more than 500 million ounces) is held by just eight traders, most of which are U.S. and foreign banks. This is the one glaring feature in silver that, to this point, has largely escaped notice, even by those that regularly follow and comment about the silver market. This is the entire ball game in silver."

These drill holes are a portion of Gold Standard’s 2017 US$15.5 million program, which includes up to 48,800 meters of reverse-circulation and core drilling in 117 holes.

The Pinion drilling was designed to 1) upgrade and potentially add to resources by reducing drill spacing in critical portions of the deposit and 2) expand drill coverage near the margins of the current pit design for possible resource additions.

All 11 drill holes intersected oxidized and altered multi-lithic dissolution collapse breccia, the principal Pinion host rock, and seven of the holes returned significant, higher-grade intercepts greater than 1 gram of gold per tonne. Results include 56.4 meters of 1.68 gram per tonne in PIN17-02, 42.7 meters of 1.23 gram per tonne in PIN17-10, 15.2 meters of 1.66 gram per tonne in PIN17-04, and 32 meters of 0.89 grams per tonne in PIN17-05. In most instances the new results either confirm or outperform the expectations in the current resource estimate block model. ...